


Farming is Honest Work

by digitalduckie



Series: Falloutverse: The Man in Black [8]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Explicit Language, Gen, mention of slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-05-02
Packaged: 2019-05-01 02:32:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14510589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/digitalduckie/pseuds/digitalduckie
Summary: Royce is tired of Gage shitting on farmers.





	Farming is Honest Work

As time went on, Gage had provided more and more of his honest opinions and suggestions. It was however behavior expected of someone who had always been the self-appointed adviser to the park's Overboss, regardless of who that may be. Some of the opinions Royce accepted, some he heeded, some he ignored, and some he gave graphic and detailed instructions as to where precisely he could stuff them. This was one of the latter.

“Gage, did a farmer kick your dog?”

“If I had one, I'm sure they would.” No doubt in self defense as the raider would very likely have sicced it on them while ransacking their crops and homestead.

“Surely. But what I am trying to understand is what part of building and maintaining what is essentially a city- what part of that you seem to think does not include the effort to sustain ourselves?” They had already had meetings in regards to the functions of various structures in the park, their defenses, power sources, and water. And now Royce saw fit to bring up the issue of another valuable resource: Food.

“There's some farmers just west-”

“Yes. We'll pay them a visit soon enough-”

“And the traders bring in-”

“Wow! You sure did interrupt me. Clearly your excuses are more important so, please, by all means continue and I will pick up where I left off just as soon as you are done.” Royce sat back, lighting a fresh cigarette and making himself comfortable. Gage's good eye looked him over in a struggle to determine whether or not he was sincere. “I'm waiting.”

“I suppose you don't actually care to hear it.”

“Not at all. But you seem to care very much about saying it.”

“The traders bring in produce, sometimes meat.” he continued after clearing his throat. “And the Pack slaughters some of their catches. We've not had an issue.”

“How many raiders do we have in the park?”

“About a hundred.”

“And, what, a dozen folks in collars?”

“I guess.”

“Now, we're not exactly handing them food for free but imagine if they all consistently and reliable earned their food. So we're at nearly ten dozen people to feed already. And of course we have these meetings because our goal is to take not just Nuka Town but all of the parks and the bottling plant. And all those parks will need more manpower- we're looking at perhaps four hundred additional bodies to cover all of them...” Royce let out a whistle.

“The traders and Pack can't bring in enough food fast enough to sustain an operation like that, Porter. Admit it. And if we went out raiding the local farmers or even the entire Commonwealth, we'd just be a shit storm of locusts until there was nothing left.”

Gage sat back in his own seat, rubbing his hand against his stubble as he took in the gravity of the math. He wasn't a stupid man and in fact Royce valued his intelligence greatly, but it was best suited for short term plans and diplomacy. Nuka World, or at least their ambitions for it, was absolutely a long term project.

“It's best to nip future problems in the bud before they arise, don't you agree?” Royce slid a map of the parks across the table. They were lucky they had so many that he could make notes and mark each one for various purposes and plans. “I'm not going to make you farm seeing as you seem to despise it so, but I am going to make you find us some folks who can and will and I want them to start just outside the eastern gate.”

“Honestly, Boss, I don't think any of the raiders are going to want to.”

“Then they'll starve.”

“They want to take the parks. They're sick of sitting on their asses-”

“So then they can get to work.”

“You closed up the gauntlet which they built specifically because they've been bored out of their minds! They didn't come here to farm-”

Royce's hand moved swiftly from his belt to the table, his knife lodged into the surface between them and his weight leaned against it and the table itself.

“We cannot take shit without a solid fucking foundation! We lost a dozen, a fucking dozen of those worthless assholes, to the God damn junkyard! A junkyard, Gage! And they think they can handle parks overrun with bots, ghouls, and fuck knows what else? If they could just walk right in and take them, you'd have all had that done before I even got here.”

He took a deep breath, releasing his grip from the knife as he fell back in his seat.

“I'm just as anxious to get into the parks as the rest of them, believe me. But it's going to take time or we're going to lose more people than we can afford to. Find me some farmers.”


End file.
